City of Somerville is trying to sell Day-Herbert parking lot to a hotel developer

[ron_newman]

The City of Somerville is taking bids from hotel developers to buy the public metered parking lot at Day and Herbert Streets, where a weekly farmers' market now operates every Wednesday from mid-May through late November.

As far as I can tell, the city has established no public process whatsoever to involve the neighborhood. They are holding a "pre-bidder's conference" on Tuesday, January 15 at 11 am at the northeast corner of the parking lot. They have not advertised the meeting at all to local residents, but it's open to the public. I urge any interested neighbors to show up and make clear that the city needs to include us in the land disposition process.

I found these two documents on the city web site:
Request for Proposals RFP #13-53: Davis Square Hotel Project
Legal Notice: RFP #13-53 = Davis Square Hotel Project

Also, here's an earlier City of Somerville page about a Davis Square Hotel, from when the city last tried to interest hotel developers in 2009. This page includes a Hotel Demand Study written in 2007.

[My own personal position: this could be good for Davis Square, but it needs to be designed sensitively, not tower over the rest of the neighborhood, and not present a blank wall to either Day or Herbert street. It's also essential to find a new nearby location for the farmers' market.]

ETA: An earlier discussion of this topic from February 2007.

Comments

[spacehawk.livejournal.com]

Parking is already difficult enough to find in the area. Will they be opening up more lots for public parking?

[spatch]

Where will the Farmers' Market go?

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

On the topic of public review and parking, the RFP says this: "The Preferred Developer’s project will be subject to extensive public review. The City strongly encourages the applicant to utilize environmentally-friendly building design elements and to provide replacement publicly assessable parking as part of the Project."

And from further along in the RFP: "Providing replacement publicly accessible parking and any additional publicly accessible parking is strongly encouraged. Proposers must be sensitive to quality of life issues affecting the local community and should attempt to minimize traffic, shadow, outdoor lighting, noise impacts and odor while maximizing landscaping, providing adequate setbacks, and screening transformers and rooftop utilities."

I'm not a developer, but if I were I suspect I wouldn't want to touch this with a ten-foot-pole. The pain-to-payoff ratio is just too high.

[teko.livejournal.com]

I'm a little baffled at the idea of replacing the only public lot adjacent to the business district with a hotel. Is "strongly encouraged" the same thing as "required" to replace the lost parking spaces? If not, how will Davis Square businesses survive without, y'know, customers being able to park?

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

I really hope so. Parking in Davis is already atrocious, as is traffic. I can't really imagine how horrendous it would be during the construction cycle. :(

And have I mentioned how much the city construction crews need to post a notice at the corner of Dover and Meacham before Meacham Road is randomly blocked by the sidewalk construction there? Doubly so if they're going to block Woodbridge St. as well. Gah.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

And even more on the parking: "It is highly recommended that any above grade parking structure fit into the urban context and not be identifiable as a parking garage except by signage. Interior structural elements required in parking structures should not be repeated on the exterior facade. A wall or other screening of sufficient height and depth of a visually appealing character is advantageous. Views into parking structures should be minimized through the use of landscaping and/or architectural treatments."

Looking at the scoring system given at the end, parking is by far the most heavily weighted. It's worth 20 points out of a total of 100.

[ron_newman]

That, to me, is the most important question about this project. My guess is that the Farmers' Market would move to the Buena Vista parking lot (where the Davis Flea was on Sundays this year).

Kenney Park or Seven Hills Park would be really bad choices, as the farmers' trucks would rip up the grass.

[ron_newman]

I bet a lot more customers come by T, bus, bike, and foot than by car.

[ron_newman]

I didn't realize there was construction on Meacham. Is that on the Somerville or the Cambridge side? (the city line is just south of Orchard)

[ron_newman]

I'm wondering if the hotel itself could get by without any parking, given the proximity of the Red Line. Did the square's previous hotel (Woodbridge Inn, where Ciampa Manor is now) have any parking?

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

Based on the RFPs, the title of this post is a little misleading -- it's not that the city *is* selling the lot so much as the city *is considering* selling the lot.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

It would still need some parking -- there'd be people driving in from NH, western MA, NY, etc. who would want somewhere to park their car during their trip, even if they don't use it.

[ron_newman]

Point taken. I edited the title from "is selling" to "is trying to sell".

[teko.livejournal.com]

That's a good bet, and I'd agree, but if I was a Davis Square business owner hearing that the only parking lot near my business might be disappearing, I wouldn't want to gamble :)

[courtney o'keefe (from livejournal.com)]

Just thought all should know that the Ward 6 Alderwoman, Rebekah Gewirtz, is looking to make this as transparent as possible. She has submitted the following order to the Board of Aldermen for Thursday night: "That the Director of SPCD create with the Ward 6 Alderman a Davis Square Hotel Advisory Group that includes neighborhood residents, and lay out a public process so community members know where, when and how to engage in this conversation."

[djethan.livejournal.com]

As former Davis Square and Porter Square residents now living on the other side of Tufts in Medford, we find ourselves still coming to Davis quite a bit. Now we can take the 96 bus but if we have a bunch of errands to run such as dropping off packages at the post office, taking clothes to be altered, having shoes repaired, going to Diesel and maybe checking out Davis Squared and Magpie, we opt to drive and park. And often park in that lot. Lately we've been finding that lot to be packed the times we have driven in.

As anecdotal evidence, we would probably find ourselves coming into Davis a bit less in these situations if parking became even tighter. That in turn would cause us to shop less at Diesel, Magpie, Davis Squared, etc. and using alternatives such as the Medford Square post office and Mystic Coffee Roasters. It might also discourage us from patronizing Flatbread, Snappi Sushi, etc for dinner on our way home from work on the occasions that we drive.

On the flipside, just this weekend we walked the 30 minutes to see a movie at the Somerville Theatre and then hit Rudy's for dinner on the way back. Very enjoyable and car-free.

I would hope that some empirical evidence was taken into account as to the usage of this lot for people who drive to Davis to patronize these businesses. I'd re-iterate the first response to this posting: "Parking is already difficult enough to find in the area. Will they be opening up more lots for public parking?"

[samcoren.livejournal.com]

Ron, I love farmers markets, but how is the farmers market the big issue here? There are plenty of options for relocation: The plaza across from the theater, Seven hills would be fine if they did a temporary "meter bag" for all the trucks...there's street parking adjacent to it, maybe strike a deal for with the VFW to use part of that parking lot... or just move it to the rite aid parking lot.

I think it's more of a quality of life issue for residents regarding the structure and a business issue regarding the parking loss. Off the top of my head there are several businesses back there that rely on it: the tattoo shop, the doctors office, planned parenthood, Socco's, Redbones, etc. FYI that planned parenthood is one of the 7 in MA and women from out of town DO drive there to get health services (the only other ones in the boston metro area are on comm ave near bu and milford): http://www.plannedparenthood.org/ma/our-locations-37871.htm

I'm getting pretty fed up with the city leaving residents and businesses in the dark on these things, but they're so cash strapped and the land is so valuable that they're trying to keep NIMBYism at minimum.

[gmg-1.livejournal.com]

I only briefly skimmed the document, but apparently the mayor just decided Davis Square needed a hotel, and the board of alderman agreed (pg 17). Does anyone have any background on this? They don't even seem to reference any sort of study saying that we really need a hotel in the neighborhood.

If they want to sell off the parking lot, then just a straight auction seems like the best economic solution.

Also, that farmers market has the most inconvenient hours ever. I might actually go if they move and have more reasonable hours.

[mzrowan.livejournal.com]

From Section J of the first document: "Applicants are encouraged to review the following documents and information available online at the City of Somerville’s website (www.somervillema.gov):
1. Pinnacle Group’s Analysis of Lodging Supply and Demand and Strategic Planning Recommendation that identifies demand for a Boutique Select Service, Branded Select Service, or Branded Limited Service hotel with amenities located in the Davis Square area. (click on “Departments”, then under the heading “Office of Strategic Planning & Community Development” click on “Economic Development” under “Projects” in the right hand column)"

Edit: Here's a link to the doc referred to above: http://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/AnalysisOfLodgingSupply%20and%20Demand.pdf

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

It wouldn't tower over the neighborhood if the neighborhood weren't ridiculously short to begin with.


Having a basement level that was itself a public parking lot would seem to be a physically possible compromise. Hell, you could have a parking basement, a few shops sharing ground level space with the hotel lobby, and the hotel above.

Though yeah, if the city is just selling land, a public auction subject to conditions seems the most responsible approach.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

The RFP cites a "lodging study" that analyzes the viability of hotels for certain areas of the city. Go here (http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/ospcd/economic-development), then click on “Economic Development” under “Projects” in the right hand column to download the study.

If you check out the Somerville Open Bids page (http://www.somervillema.gov/departments/finance/purchasing/bids), you'll notice there's also another open RFP for purchase and development of the former Powderhouse Community School. One of the options for development is also for a hotel. I think Somerville--and in particular the Davis/Tufts area--could use more hotel space, although I don't think plunking it in the middle of Davis is the best idea, for the reasons others have cited above. The Powderhouse school might be a better option, although it feels a little out of place to me being in an almost entirely residential neighborhood.

[ron_newman]

If I were a potential hotel guest, I'd much rather stay in a hotel two short blocks from a T station, instead of 1/2 mile away requiring me to navigate unfamiliar residential side streets.

[ron_newman]

If the hotel is going to be above parking, I'd hate for it to look like the Harvard Square Hotel in Brattle Square, which is elevated on stilts above a surface-level parking lot. That's a really ugly and pedestrian-unfriendly design.

[smacaski.livejournal.com]

True; however, I believe the lodging study also notes how a nearby hotel could also serve the Tufts community (parents staying in town for Parents' Weekend, graduation, etc.), so a hotel closer to the campus could serve both purposes.

The Powderhouse RFP also cites the importance of maintaining between Broadway and Holland via schoolyard and Tufts Administration building parking lot, which would certainly help out-of-towners navigate getting into Davis better.

[ron_newman]

I've edited this post to include a link to that market demand study.